Calum Scott didn’t have the easiest time coming out to his group of friends, who he says showed a complete lack of support when he revealed he was gay.
The former Britain’s Got Talent contestant has released his new album, Bridges, which promises to be his most honest body of work yet with insight into how Calum Scott dealt with his ‘lowest’ point while writing the album.
Leading the record is the single Boys In The Street, a heart wrenching tale of a father who has struggled to accept his son’s sexuality right until his deathbed.
Calum, 33, fortunately had an easier coming out experience with his parents, but he was able to relate to the song after dealing with the fallout of revealing his sexuality to his friends when he was younger.
‘I must admit my parents were pretty great with my coming out,’ Calum – who publicly came out as gay in 2016 – told Metro.co.uk. ‘I wrote a song called No Matter What from the first album that details when I told my mum and she said she loved me “no matter what” and it was this beautiful moment I had with her where I was finally able to get it off my chest.
‘Then I told my friends and was totally abandoned. So I understand the pain that comes with being misunderstood and not feeling like you’re part of anything.’
Calum recalled being shocked by their reaction as he wasn’t thinking of his sexuality in a sexual way, more that he knew he ‘didn’t want to be involved with girls in the way that my mates were’.
‘I wanted to skateboard and BMX and do all the stuff that we did because I was 13, 14 years old,’ he explained.
‘Girls were coming into our group and I was just like, I want to skateboard.
‘It was very innocent for me at the time but then because I felt like I was different from them, all of a sudden I started scrutinising myself, got really down on myself to a point where I felt like I had to tell somebody and I’m a total mummy’s boy so I trusted my mum.’
It’s this experience that allowed Calum to sing on Boys In The Street ‘with conviction’ based on the ‘real pain that I went through’.
‘The beautiful thing about the way that the song is crafted is because it talks about that pain and then it starts to get a bit better,’ he said.
One of Calum’s biggest successes is the song No Matter What, which has amassed over 118m views in three years. The comments make for both a heartwarming and tearjerking read, with some fans sharing how the song helped them overcome hurdles with their sexuality, while others found themselves on a darker path.
Ultimately, Calum just wants his music to impact others going through similar experiences.
‘That’s the most valuable thing is that in my honesty, putting that out was a huge decision because I’d come into this business not necessarily wanting to talk about my sexuality,’ he explained.
‘When I released that song, it was me making peace with it and realising that actually my story’s one of hundreds and thousands and I thought, if I put that out there considering the kind of platform I have, this is the perfect opportunity for me to highlight a really important topic.’
He added: ‘That’s when you realise that you’re having an impact and I think for me, having that kind of relationship with my fans is worth more than anything. It’s worth more than any hundred million views or chart position, it would trump anything in my career because all I’ve ever wanted to do is help people, and it’s like using music as a medicine which I think is the closest to magic you’re going to get.’
Calum Scott’s new album Bridges, also featuring the new single Heaven, is out now.
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